Dreamsnake (8 page)

Arevin sat on a huge boulder, his cousin’s baby gurgling in a sling against
his chest. The warmth and activity of the new being were a comfort to him as he
stared across the desert, in the direction Snake had gone. Stavin was well and
the new child healthy; Arevin knew he should feel grateful and glad of the
clan’s good fortune, so he felt vaguely guilty about his lingering sorrow. He
touched the place on his cheek where the white serpent’s tail had struck him. As
Snake had promised, there was no scar. It seemed impossible that she had been
gone long enough for the cut to scab over and heal, because he remembered
everything about her as clearly as if she were still here. About Snake was none
of the blurriness that distance and time impart to most acquaintances. At the
same time it felt to Arevin as if she had been gone forever.

One of the huge musk oxen the clan herded ambled up and rubbed herself
against the boulder, giving her side a good scratch. She whuffled at Arevin,
nuzzling his foot and licking at his boot with her great pink tongue. Nearby,
her half-grown calf chewed at the dry, leafless branches of a desert bush. All
the beasts in the herd grew thin during each harsh summer; now their coats were
dull and rough. They survived the heat well enough if their insulating
undercoats were thoroughly combed out when they began shedding in the spring;
since the clan kept the oxen for their fine, soft winter wool, the combing was
never neglected. But the oxen, like the people, had had enough of summer and
heat and foraging for dry and tasteless food. The animals were anxious, in their
mild-mannered way, to return to the fresh grass of winter pastures. Ordinarily
Arevin too would be glad to return to the plateaus.

The baby waved tiny hands in the air, clutched Arevin’s finger, and drew it
down. Arevin smiled. “That’s one thing I can’t do for you, little one,” he said.
The baby sucked at his fingertip and gummed it contentedly, without crying when
no milk came. The baby’s eyes were blue, like Snake’s. Many babies’ eyes are
blue, Arevin thought. But a child’s blue eyes were enough to make him drift off
into dreams.

He dreamed about Snake almost every night, or at least every night he was
able to sleep. He had never felt this way about anyone before. He clung to
memories of the few times they had touched: leaning against each other in the
desert; the touch of her strong fingers on his bruised cheek; in Stavin’s tent,
where he had comforted her. It was absurd that the happiest time in his life
seemed to him the moment just before he knew she must leave, when he embraced
her and hoped she might decide to stay. And she would have stayed, he thought.
Because we do need a healer, and maybe partly because of me. She would have
stayed longer if she could.

That was the only time he had cried in as long as he could remember. Yet he
understood her not being willing to stay with her abilities crippled, for right
now he felt crippled too. He was no good for anything. He knew it but could do
nothing about it. Every day he hoped Snake might return, though he knew she
would not. He had no idea how far beyond the desert her destination lay. She
might have traveled from the healers’ station for a week or a month or half a
year before reaching the desert and deciding to cross it in search of new people
and new places.

He should have gone with her. He was certain of that now. In her grief she
could not accept him, but he should have seen immediately that she would never
be able to explain to her teachers what had happened here. Even Snake’s insight
would not help her comprehend the terror Arevin’s people felt toward vipers.
Arevin understood it from experience, from the nightmare he still had about his
little sister’s death, from the cold sweat sliding down his body when Snake had
asked him to help hold Mist. And he knew it from his own deathly fear when the
sand viper bit Snake’s hand, for already he loved her, and he knew she would
die.

Snake was associated with the only two miracles in Arevin’s experience. She
had not died, that was the first, and the second was that she had saved Stavin’s
life.

The baby blinked and sucked harder on Arevin’s finger. Arevin slid down from
the boulder and held out one hand. The tremendous musk ox laid her chin on his
palm and he scratched her beneath the jaw.

“Will you give some dinner to this child?” Arevin said. He patted her back
and her side and her stomach and knelt down beside her. She did not have a great
deal of milk this late in the year, but the calf was nearly weaned. With his
sleeve Arevin briefly rubbed her teat, then held his cousin’s baby in reach of
it. No more afraid of the immense beast than Arevin was, the child suckled
hungrily.

When the baby’s hunger was satisfied, Arevin scratched the musk ox under the
jaw again and climbed back up on the boulder. After a while the child fell
asleep, tiny fingers wrapped around Arevin’s hand.

“Cousin!”

He glanced around. The leader of the clan climbed the side of the boulder and
sat beside him, her long hair unbound and moving in the faint wind. She leaned
over and smiled at the baby.

“How has this child been behaving?”

“Perfectly.”

She shook her hair back from her face. “They’re so much easier to carry when
you can put them on your back. And even put them down once in a while.” She
grinned. She was not always as reserved and dignified as when she received the
clan’s guests.

Arevin managed a smile.

She put her hand over his, the one the baby was holding. “My dear, do I have
to ask what’s the matter?”

Arevin shrugged, embarrassed. “I’ll try to do better,” he said. “I’ve been of
little use lately.”

“Do you think I’m here to criticize?”

“Criticism would be proper.” Arevin did not look at the leader of his clan,
his cousin, but instead stared at her peaceful child. His cousin let go of his
hand and put her arm around his shoulders.

“Arevin,” she said, speaking to him directly by name for the third time in
his life, “Arevin, you are valuable to me. In time you could be elected the
clan’s leader, if you wish it. But you must settle your mind. If she did not
want you
…
”

“We wanted each other,” Arevin said. “But she couldn’t continue her work here
and she said I must not go with her. I can’t follow her now.” He glanced down at
his cousin’s child. Since his own parents’ deaths, Arevin had been accepted as a
member of his cousin’s family group. There were six adult partners, two, now
three, children, and Arevin. His responsibilities were not well defined, but he
did feel responsible for the children. Especially now, with the trip to winter
territory ahead, the clan needed the work of every member. From now until the
end of the trip the musk oxen had to be watched night and day, or they would
wander east, a few at a time, seeking the new pastures, and never be seen again.
Finding food was an equally difficult problem for the human beings at this time
of year. But if they left too early, they would arrive at the wintering grounds
when the forage was still new-sprouted tender and easily damaged.

“Cousin, tell me what you want to say.”

“I know the clan can’t spare anyone right now. I have responsibilities here,
to you, to this child
…
But the healer—how can she
explain what happened here? How can she make her teachers understand when she
can’t understand it herself? I saw a sand viper strike her. I saw the blood and
poison running down her hand. But she hardly even noticed it. She said she
should never have felt it at all.“

Arevin looked at his friend, for he had told no one about the sand viper
before, thinking they would not be able to believe him. The leader was startled,
but she did not dispute his word.

“How can she explain how we feared what she offered? She will tell her
teachers she made a mistake and because of it the little serpent was killed. She
blames herself. They will too, and they’ll punish her.”

The leader of the clan gazed across the desert. She reached up and pushed a
lock of her graying hair back behind her ear.

“She is a proud woman,” she said. “You’re right. She wouldn’t make excuses
for herself.”

“She won’t come back if they exile her,” Arevin said. “I don’t know where she
will go, but we would never see her again.”

“The storms are coming,” the leader said abruptly.

Arevin nodded.

“If you went after her—”

“I can’t! Not now!”

“My dear,” the leader said, “we do things the way we do them so we can all be
as free as possible most of the time, instead of only some of us being free all
of the time. You’re enslaving yourself to responsibility when extraordinary
circumstances demand freedom. If you were a partner in the group and it was your
job to hold this child, the problem would be more difficult, but it would not
necessarily be impossible to solve. As it is, my partner has had much more
freedom since the child’s birth than he expected to have when we decided to
conceive it. That is because of your willingness to do more than your share.”

“It isn’t like that,” Arevin said quickly. “I wanted to help with the child.
I needed to. I needed—” He stopped, not knowing what he had started to say. “I
was grateful to him for allowing me to help.”

“I know. And I had no objection. But he was not doing you a favor. You were
doing one for him. Perhaps now it’s time to return his responsibilities.” She
smiled fondly. “He is inclined to get too engrossed in his work.” Her partner
was a weaver, the best in the clan, but she was right: he did often seem to
drift through life in dreams.

“I should never have let her go,” Arevin said abruptly. “Why didn’t I see
that before? I should have protected my sister, and I failed, and now I’ve
failed the healer as well. She should have stayed with us. We would have kept
her safe.”

“We would have kept her crippled.”

“She could still heal—!”

“My dear friend,” Arevin’s cousin said, “it’s impossible to protect anyone
completely without enslaving them. I think that’s something you’ve never
understood because you’ve always demanded too much of yourself. You blame
yourself for your sister’s death—”

“I didn’t watch her carefully enough.”

“What could you have done? Remember her life, not her death. She was brave
and happy and arrogant, the way a child should be. You could only protect her
more by chaining her to you with fear. She couldn’t live that way, not and
remain the person you loved. Nor, I think, could the healer.”

Arevin stared down at the infant in his arms, knowing his cousin was right,
yet still unable to throw off his feelings of confusion and guilt.

She patted his shoulder gently. “You know the healer best and you say she
cannot explain our fear. I think you’re right. I should have realized it myself.
I do not want her to be punished for what we did, nor do I wish our people to be
misunderstood.” The handsome woman fingered the metal circle on the narrow
leather thong around her neck. “You are right. Someone must go to the healers’
station. I could go, because the clan’s honor is my responsibility. My brother’s
partner could go, because he killed the little serpent. Or you could go, because
you call the healer friend. The clan will have to meet to decide which. But any
of us might be leader, and any of us might have feared her little serpent enough
to kill it. Only you became her friend.“

She looked from the horizon to Arevin, and he knew she had been leader long
enough to reason as the clan would reason.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’ve lost so many people you’ve loved. There was nothing I could do when
we lost your parents, or when your sister died. But this time I can help you,
even if that might take you from us.” She brushed her hand across his hair,
which was graying like her own. “Please remember, my dear, that I would not like
to lose you permanently.”

She climbed quickly down to the desert floor, leaving him alone with her
family group’s new child. Her trust reassured him; he no longer needed to
question if following the healer, if following Snake, was the right thing to do.
It was, because it had to be done. At the very least the clan owed her that.
Arevin eased his hand from the baby’s damp grasp, moved the sling to his back,
and climbed from the boulder to the desert floor.

On the horizon, the oasis hovered so green and soft in the dull dawn light
that at first Snake thought it was a mirage. She did not feel quite capable of
distinguishing illusion from reality. She had ridden all night to cross the lava
flow before the sun rose and the heat grew intolerable. Her eyes burned and her
lips were dry and cracked.

The gray mare, Swift, raised her head and pricked her ears, nostrils flaring
at the scent of water, eager to reach it after so long on short rations. When
the horse broke into a trot Snake did not rein her in.

The delicate summertrees rose around them, brushing Snake’s shoulders with
feathery leaves. The air beneath them was almost cool, and thick with the odor
of ripening fruit. Snake pulled the end of her headcloth away from her face and
breathed deeply.

She dismounted and led Swift to the dark clear pool. The mare plunged her
muzzle into the water and drank. Even her nostrils were beneath the surface.
Snake knelt nearby and cupped water in her hands. It splashed and ran between
her fingers, brushing ripples across the pool’s surface. The ripples widened and
cleared, and Snake could see herself reflected above the black sand. Her face
was masked with dust.

I look like a bandit, she thought. Or a clown.

But the laughter she deserved was of contempt, not joy. Tear tracks streaked
the dirt on her face. She touched them, still staring down at her reflection.

Snake wished she could forget the past few days, but they would never leave
her. She could still feel the dry fragility of Jesse’s skin, and her light,
questioning touch; she could still hear her voice. And she could feel the pain
of Jesse’s death, which she could do nothing to prevent, and nothing to ease.
She did not want to see that pain or feel it again.